


Obsession

by hhertzof



Series: Slipping [2]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Dubious Consent, F/M, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:56:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor's a little obssessed with Sarah Jane. Companion piece to Descent.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obsession

**Author's Note:**

> Dark and twisted. Sex and drugs but no rock and roll (darn, I knew I forgot something). Suicidal behavior (not mine).

**Running**

You've been running for almost as long as you can remember. You were never good at staying in one place or being what they wanted, now you have no choice. You can't remember what home feels like, but you know there's nothing left for you there. You leave Susan behind when she finds a place to belong, but you keep running. You tell yourself you're running towards the next new adventure, but you know in your hearts that you're still running away. Sometimes you wish you could stop, but you've forgotten how.

You learned long ago not to look back.

 

**Exile**

A day comes when you need their help, so you contact them, knowing that it will cost you your freedom. You strain at the bonds they put on you. They have made this world you had grown to love a prison. You find something to occupy your mind, but it doesn't keep away the darkness. You find friends as well, but humans need sleep and you don't and you spend too many long nights alone. You wonder how you could have ever wanted to stop running.

The chains binding you here are not physical, but you can still feel them.

 

**Freedom**

You do them a favour and they set you free, but you find you cannot just walk away. You've made promises and friends, built a life you aren't ready to walk away from, just yet. When Jo leaves you think it is time to go, but then she walks through the door and you are lost. You don't know why she's different from the others who have traveled with you, but she is. She's strong and smart and stubborn and she quickly becomes your best friend and your confidant.

When you realize you want more from her, it frightens you.

 

**Forbidden**

Your thoughts betray you. You shouldn't want this. She'd feel hurt; she trusts you. She would never see a man who looked old enough to be her grandfather as a lover. Your other companions saw you as a father figure, a bachelor uncle, and you never had the desire to change this. You know she feels the same as they did. Even after you regenerate, you can't bring yourself to broach the subject. You're too afraid you'll lose her as a friend.

If she were a Time Lord, it would be different, but she is human and not for you.

 

**Control**

You learn to control your reaction to her, to hide how she makes you feel, what she makes you want. When the noise in your head gets too loud, you find some excuse to focus on something else. You want her to stay, even if she can never be yours. Until the day you find yourself thinking that you can take advantage of her while she's under mind control, and then hypnotize her to forget. The thought makes you nauseous, the fact that you considered it even more so.

You have to send her home. She isn't safe with you.

 

**Cruelty**

The call from Gallifrey comes as a welcome excuse. She's been talking about leaving, but you know she doesn't mean it, so you give her no choice. You don't want her to go, but you know you won't be able to walk away more than once. You know you cannot be kind, so you choose the cruelest way possible. Leaving her in Aberdeen instead of South Croydon. Promising you'll come back for her, when you know you never can.

If your paths ever cross, you don't want her to trust you again, not when you know you can't trust yourself.

 

**Silence**

You sleep with Romana, thinking she might clear your head. This is what you are supposed to want, after all. The relationship doesn't work very well, no matter how hard you try. She teases you about developing a taste for humans and you let her believe that, even though it isn't true. She is the first of your companions to make it to your bed. The affair ends long before she leaves you.

Later, you will take human lovers and you will learn silence, knowing that if you were to cry out a name, it might be the wrong one.

 

**Absence**

When you regenerate, you fill the TARDIS with people, hoping the gap caused by her absence will be less noticeable. You see her again at Rassilon's tomb, only for a moment but it destroys the balance you are trying hard to regain. You spend the night in Turlough's bed and try not to think of her smile. You wish things could have been different with her, but you can't see how. You hope she moved on.

Eventually you reunite Turlough with his family and he leaves, as others have done before, and you find another companion to fill the silences.

 

**Memory**

Time does heal you, slowly. Each regeneration pushes her farther into the past. You assume she has built herself a life without you, found someone to love her who was worthy of her. You're jealous of this faceless man or woman, but even if she could have loved you, if she had stayed with you she would be long dead by now. You like to think of her happy. Years go by without a thought of her, and then something will bring it back, but even that is muted.

She has become a memory, and you are grateful for that.

 

**Nighmare**

The war is your worst nightmare come to life. You were never a killer, now you have become one. You push the button and watch your people and your world burn. You never had much love for Gallifrey, but now you are completely alone. The silence is deafening. You've started to regenerate and you're not thinking very clearly. You punch in coordinates that you thought you had forgotten a long time ago. Aberdeen, 1980, a few minutes after you left her. But your hands are shaking and you end up in London, 2005.

You know it is for the best.

 

**Healing**

Her name is Rose and when you told her to run, she grabbed your hand and ran. His name is Jack and he has the brightest smile. With your own kind gone, all the guilt you used to feel about wanting this has started to fade. You know he won't be offended by a pass and that having Jack means having Rose as well which you don't mind at all. She is blond and will never remind you of another, so long ago.

Between Jack and Rose your war wounds start to heal, and then the Daleks take him too.

 

**Reunion**

You see her again when you least expect it. She doesn't know you at first, and when she realizes, her voice turns bitter. She tells you "You were my life," and you wonder if propositioning her when you first met would have been kinder, but you can't change the past. So you fix K-9, and you shove Rose in her face and you hope it's enough. She is still beautiful and you're still dangerous, and any chance things could have been different was lost long ago.

You know she will never see you as anything more than a friend.

 

**Inescapable**

 

Rose starts to cling to you. She doesn't understand how much you hate being bound. You're still trying to deal with feelings you thought were long dormant and can't cope with this. So you lose yourself in the next available female. You watch yourself self destruct with Reinette and you don't really care. You pull free, somehow, and move on with your life. Rose tries to bind you even more, but you go to her bed and close your eyes, so you can pretend she is your Sarah Jane.

You lose Rose to the Daleks and everything falls apart again.

 

**Rescue**

You save the world and save the bride, but then you spot Sarah and you are undone. Just a cup of tea, you think. You feel guilty about Rose, who you could never love. You go to her flat and find her unconscious on the sofa. The empty bottles tell a story you didn't want to know. You give her something to neutralize the drugs and carry her to her bed, trying to ignore how good she feels in your arms.

She won't let go, so you lie down beside her, even though you know she is way too close.

 

**Inevitable**

She reaches for you, and you know she's still under the influence of the drugs and that she doesn't know what she's doing, but she is caressing you and your control shatters way too quickly. Her eyes fly open as you thrust into her and you realize that she's awake but it's too late to stop. You feel her hands in your hair, pulling you closer and you wonder what she's thinking. You feel her climax beneath you and you let go the last shreds of control.

You don't know if you will ever forgive yourself for this. She won't.

 

**Broken**

You roll off of her, trying to apologize, and knowing there is nothing you could say. You took something that was broken and damaged it further. You start to leave the bed, but she stops you, less scared of you than of being alone. You understand that fear too well, so you stay.

In the morning you wake, disoriented. She's lying beside you and you're horrified again at what you did. But she reaches for you and kisses you, with a look of uncertainty in her eyes, and the sweet taste of her lips drives everything else from your brain.

 

**Home**

Later you talk about what has happened. She's unsure about how she feels about this, but it isn't disgust that you see in her eyes. It's just new to her, that you could feel this way about her. She talks about watching the others move on and how she never could, and you ask her if that is really what she wanted. You tell her about Rose, and your guilt at never being what she needed.

In the end she stays behind to rebuild her life and you promise to return. You no longer have any reason to stay away.


End file.
